Husbands, Love Your Wives (part 5) - [Ephesians 5:25-32]

I know my Irish. I mean, Cooley is a fine Irish name. But the second part is what

I wanted to focus on here. And it is a glory to overlook an offense.

If I'm talking here about treating my wife as the weaker vessel, and I want to emphasize the positive, how does it help me to overlook an offense?

Or even to be slow to anger? How do those things help me? No ideas.

Okay, moving on. Yes. I'll respond better.

Okay, good. I'm responsible for my own reaction regardless of what my spouse does.

So if I think slow to anger, if I think overlook sin, what does it, you know, if I'm overlooking a sin, does that mean

I don't notice it? What does it mean? I don't bring it up.

And for this reason, if, let's say somehow, you're supernaturally gifted as a sin detector.

Is that a gift? Yeah, only if it's your own sin, right?

I mean, actually, that could be a problem too. What if, you know, every time, you know, you sin, you know, you get like a little jolt of electricity or something like that, you'd be dead in no time.

But if you had some kind of detector where every time your spouse sinned, you know,

I suppose against you, but some people don't even bother with that one, that threshold. How about just every time your spouse sins, you know, you kind of go, hey, that's a sin.

Or every time they even, they sin against you, it really gets at you. Then how's your relationship going to be with your wife?

Brief. Yeah, it's going to be one of those Britney Spears marriages, you know.

I heard her on the radio the other day, you know, they did this Lynn Truss thing, longer or shorter, who knows what

Lynn Truss is. She was, Lynn Truss was the, 44 days as the prime minister of England, right?

So they're like longer or shorter. And then they said, Britney Spears, she was actually married less than 44 days.

If, you know, you're constantly harping on your wife about things that she's doing wrong, your relationship is going to be really pretty difficult.

Ooh, what happened to that? What happened to take the log out of your own eye before you focus on your wife's, you know, that whole

Matthew 7 thing? Now, I think, you know, there is, you know,

I think we all have to decide what, you know, the things up with which we should not put.

Thank you, thank you very much. I worked on that for a while. You know, okay.

And that was all just to avoid ending on a preposition. But what, you know, and I don't want to get into a long discussion about, you know, when you should decide that you need to confront your wife, because we're talking about wives and husbands.

But I think if your determination is every time she sins, I'm going to confront her and tell her about it.

Then you're going to have a very strained relationship. And in essence, you've turned into what?

The Holy Spirit. You are responsible for your wife's sanctification. If I don't do this, then who's going to?

Oh, I don't know. Does the Holy Spirit indwell her too? And so,

I mean, I think there are some determinations that one has to make. And, you know, I would say to newlyweds too, there are things that you overlook for a long time.

And then, you know, you overlook them, but you kind of don't really want to overlook them.

And then after a while, you realize you have to say something because what? Jonathan? Because it's the loving thing to do.

Okay, but I'm being slightly more selfish in my thinking here. Because you're going to go crazy.

I mean, like I said a few weeks ago, it's one thing if your husband throws his socks on the floor and you've been married three days and you just go, oh, look at him, just like a little boy.

Oh, it's so cute. And you go and you pick him up and stuff like that. And, you know, that was three days.

After three years, 13 years, it gets a little, you know, finally one day you just go, you know what?

I'm going to sit his socks on fire. Janet? Okay. Wait.

Yeah, let's talk about toilet paper rolls for a minute. Turn off the tape. If you go and you see the actual, you know, it's not a trademark or a copyright.

What is that? Patent. Yes. If you go and see the actual patent, there is a right way to do this. Okay, people,

I want to make this clear. And it's away from the wall. But I will say it's not a sin issue.

It's hard for me to say. It is a matter of preference.

I feel like the Fonz, you know, trying to say I was wrong.

I can't. I just can't do it. I can't say I was wrong. It is a preference issue. But, you know, it can get,

I mean, if you're really hung up on it, if you really have OCD about some things in life, you know, that's, and that's one of them.

Yeah. But by focusing, and I've said this before,

I don't want to sound like a charismatic, but if you, if you focus on the negative, what's the overall atmosphere of your marriage?

It's going to be negative. She's always going to be wondering, what's he going to holler about me, at me for next.

So if you're not going to focus on the negative, then what do you do? Focus on the positive. You know, think about the noble things that your wife does.

Think about the good things that she does. Praise her for those things.

And I believe this would also be, since I didn't put his name here, also Kistemacher. The first reason for husbands to honor their wife stems from the knowledge that they're the weaker partner in the marriage.

The word weaker refers to physical stamina, not to intellectual abilities, moral courage or spiritual strength.

Therefore, the husband ought to shoulder the heavier burdens. Now, I want to say a word about the heavier burdens.

What are the heavier burdens? Can be, you know, things in the living room that need to get moved around.

We were talking about that last night, but we had a way to share that. But what can the heavier burdens be?

Okay. It's not necessarily physical. It could be other things. Let me give you an example of something that maybe a husband ought to take care of.

And, you know, this isn't me doing a great thing. This is just me understanding that there are things that I think are right for me to do and that my wife really would prefer not to have to do.

And this goes with knowing your wife. So we have a little, if you've been to our house, you know this.

It's one of the great joys of homeownership is there are all these little things, little, there's always something weird about a house.

I mean, I don't care where you are. There's something odd about it. And in our case, our house has a little, what's the word

I'm looking for? It's not a lean. It's one of those things that the property, what is it?

Easement. Yes. We have an easement. And on this easement, the town has a very lovely pumping station.

It's really nice. Come on. It has a nice little flat roof.

And here's the point of that. Some neighborhood kids have figured out, and I don't know how they get up there. I mean,

I really don't. It's just like, and they just bounce up there. So they're up there one day, and, you know, they're up there eating candy and throwing the wrappers off.

And, you know, and I just thought, I don't remember what we were doing then, but it was like they were gone, and the grandkids went out there and picked up the candy wrappers.

And I thought, next time they're over there, I'm going to send Janet out there and scare those kids away.

So several days later, they came over, or one of them was up there. The first thing

I did was what? I said, Janet, get out there, scare that kid away.

First thing I did was I took a picture in case he ran before I got over there. I just said, okay. And, you know, that way, if he went home, had any lumps, then we'd have the picture that showed he didn't have lumps.

And it could all, no, that's not right. I took a picture of him, and then I went outside, and I said, you know,

I just, I was very nice. And I said, excuse me, you know, the DWP guys.

And it's true. I did talk to them. They don't want you up there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Kid got down, went home, that was that.

But I didn't ask Janet to go do it because that's something, A, that she wouldn't want to do.

B, it's something I pretty much spent, you know, half my life doing. And, C, there's no reason for me to set her up to have to get into some, you know, argument with some 10 -year -old hooligan, with all respect to the 10 -year -old hooligan.

But it's just kind of a, it's just something that she wouldn't want to do. You know, if it's, and I've talked about this before, you know, things about bills or stuff like that.

For the most part, she's happy with it, unless, until they start giving her a hard time. Then, you know, maybe

I need to do it. Second reason for husbands to honor their wives is that Christian husbands and wives should consider each other equals.

And I think it is important for us to remember that because we can get this kind of unequal idea because we talk about wives submit to your husbands, husbands are the head over the wife, etc.,

etc. Well, it gives it an uneven sense. But Peter says that you are co -heirs of the gracious gift of life.

So you're equal in Christ, you're equal before the cross, as it were. But there's a difference in responsibilities.

Thoughts or questions before I read this practical, wonderful comment from a wife about her husband.

She says about her husband that he respects me as a person, not making me feel dumb about my suggestions.

And I'm just going to pause for a moment there. You know, your wife says something and you go, well, that's a dumb idea.

And there's absolute silence because it's happened. Not using loaded language to win an argument.

What would she mean by that? Ultimately, it's this.

Phrasing things in such a way, when you're making your counter argument or you're trying to make your points, that if she disagrees with you, what?

I'm sorry. Yeah. So by virtue of, you know, the weight and the import and the tone of my voice and maybe even saying, well, you'd have to be an idiot to think.

You know, now she thinks, OK, if I say that, if I disagree with that, so much better not to do that.

She goes on to say, maybe my husband is not perfect at this, but he does and wants to try.

And when he does, that is even better. OK, I'm ready to move on to Colossians chapter three, verse 19,

Colossians 3, 19. Paul again, commanding husbands, but he adds something to it.

He says, husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Curtis Vaughn wrote this. He said the ancient world was a man's world.

Hugh James Brown. It's a man's world. And even among the

Jews, the wife was often little more than chattel, little more than cattle than an animal.

That's how she was considered. Paul's counsel in the present passage is striking, is a striking contrast to this.

He quotes somebody else whose name I can't pronounce, says that their comment is again appropriate.

Quote, Jew and Gentile alike assumed that the head of a household would wield an authority which others were bound to obey.

A man's home is his castle kind of thing. Paul does not openly challenge this assumption, but he modifies both the authority and its acceptance by the

Christian principle of mutual love and deference so that both are transformed.

Husbands love your wives. Doesn't say husbands rule your wives.

Husbands lord your authority over your wives. Instead, he says, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

To love your wives, of course. Agape love, he says, does not denote affection or romantic attachment.

Rather, it denotes caring love, a deliberate, listen to this part, a deliberate attitude of mind that concerns itself with the well -being of the one loved.

I mean, people say this all the time. I love my wife or I love my husband. Does that really mean that they have a self -deferential attitude?

You know, in other words, they're not going to put themselves first. They're going to put the other person first. A lot of times it doesn't.

And then he says negatively, Paul urges husbands not to be harsh with their wives using a word that suggests a surly, irritable attitude.

I wish I could say I never did that. I wish I could say I didn't do it this week.

You hear that tone coming out of your mouth. And what do you think? Do you think good job,

Steve? That sounds really good. Or do you think, boy, I could have said that better. And then, you know, your wife says, boy, you could have said that better.

And the conclusion is, yeah, I could have said that better. Let's look for a moment at James chapter three,

James chapter three. And, you know, this is in the context of teachers, you know, and not having a or having a stricter judgment.

But listen to the beginning of verse three. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

In other words, we steer horses by these little things. We put it in their mouth and cause pain if they don't go the right way.

Then he says, look at the ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds.

They are guided by a very small rudder where wherever the will of the pilot directs.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind.

But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With it, we bless our Lord and father. And with it, we curse people who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

My brothers, these things ought not to be so. We praise

God and then we turn around and insult our wives. We speak ill of them.

We insult them. James says such things ought not to be.

We ought to strive to control our tongues. Keeping in that, if there are no comments, we'll go to Ephesians 429, keeping on the same theme.

And I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'll say it till the day I die. And I'll probably say it, you know, I thought about videotaping my own funeral message.

And in it, I'll probably include this verse. Why? Because I want,

I tried to say this at the end of last week and it was hard for me. You know, when you are dying, when you're on your deathbed or when you think you're on your deathbed, maybe

Mike should be in here talking about this. But I think, you know, you will think of all the blessings in your life, all the good things.

But what else do you suppose you might be thinking about? Your regrets.

And what do you suppose you'll regret more than anything else? The stuff you said or the things that you failed to say correctly.

And most of those will have to do with your spouse. Ephesians 429.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for the building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

What is corrupt talk? Hendrickson says it is, this is an illustrative word, putrid, rotten, defiling, injurious.

Then he says something really insightful. He says we may well assume that for many years, these rather recent converts to the

Christian faith, he's writing to new believers, had been living in an impure environment where foul conversation at feasts and other social gatherings and parties had been the stock and trade for everyone present.

The change from this toxic environment to the pure and wholesome atmosphere of Christian fellowship must have been nothing short of revolutionary.

Let me ask you something. If you, let's say we had a church camp,

BBC camp, and it was, let's just stretch it out.

Everybody went and it was a month long. I mean, besides having tics and, you know, being tired of camp food and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you suppose on that Monday morning when you went back into the office, what do you think would hit you first?

Besides the fact, I'm at work. What do you think might, you know, affect you the fastest?

Did you work in a jail? I mean, that's something. Yeah, well, when you walk into a jail, you get overwhelmed by the smell, but it's not quite that.

Yes, Brian. Okay, the different atmosphere, lack of fellowship, absolutely.

Language is definitely going to change. You've probably gone from a month of, you know, maybe you might have heard something untoward when somebody was setting up their tent or when

Becky tripped in the middle of the night. But now, in the work environment, the worldly environment, it's commonplace.

People just unload. They have absolutely no qualms about what they say. None, because they're used to saying it.

In fact, you know, it really does. I don't know, you know, maybe I'm a child of the 50s. But it still shocks me to hear women, you know, cursing like sailors.

I don't know why it shocks me. I mean, I had a boss who was like, I used to go, female boss, and I'd just go, man, she can really string that stuff together, can't she?

No corrupting talk come out of your mouths. And then he says, nothing, you know, nothing.

I mean, when you think about the ways the, you know, well, here's another excuse.

Well, I'm just sarcastic. Okay. I'm sarcastic too.

But if my sarcasm is like used as almost a verbal kind of machine gun against my wife, am

I loving my wife? Well, that's just the way I am. Okay. And again, what is love?

Love is having an attitude of she comes before me, right?

I want to treat her, listen, better than I treat myself.

Will you ever do that? No. But if that's my goal, if that is my goal, then every time

I unleash on her, then what am I doing? I'm failing. I'm sinning. And listen to what he says, but only such as is good for building up or edifying.

If you think to yourself, and I encourage people to do this all the time. If you just think to yourself for a minute, not a full minute, maybe two seconds.

If you say, okay, is what I'm about to say corrupting or edifying? Is what

I'm about to say designed to tear my wife down or to build her up? And if it is to tear her down, then maybe you ought to take that two seconds and think, you know what?

I just need to not say this. I need to shut up. And if it's for building up, feel free.

And listen to this. Here's another bit of this. That it may give grace to those who hear.

Well, it's only me and my wife. Nobody else is going to hear this. Oh, no.

Wrong. Dave, thanks for that contribution. Dave. Okay, let's talk about the second one first.

Why would Jesus be able to talk about the Pharisees in that manner without sinning?

I knew that was coming. Okay, but why else? Besides the fact that he's

God, yes. Would we be though? Okay.

Okay. I mean, there's some truth to that, but there's some falsity to that too.

Because, you know, does Jesus have to kind of go through the Matthew 7 checklist? You know, remove the beam from my own eye before I address the speck in their eye.

No, he doesn't. So he's free to do those things. But what he's after isn't so much the individual

Pharisees. Right. He calls them what? A brood of vipers.

He calls them, you know, he talks about all these different things. They go all around the world to make disciples.

And they turn them into twice the sons of hell that they are. Right. Why is that?

Why can he do that? And essentially, I would ask, why is it okay to criticize false teaching, false teachers?

Okay. It informs, it edifies the teachers between the false teaching and the correct teaching of the word.

It is grace. You know, and I think it stands as a model of a number of things.

You know, you have to be able to, elders have to be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.

And he's definitely refuting those who contradict sound doctrine. Yes, they added a lot of things to the law.

Well, but that's right. I mean, all the additions, all the extra legalisms and whatnot were all wrong.

And they're just added weight that people can't do anyway. Brian, were you going to say something? Okay. He might not have been edifying the

Pharisees, but he was edifying the church, the people of God. You know, maybe even people who didn't know any better.

True. Yeah, they were criticizing him.

So let's get back to Ephesians 4 .29 for a second in keeping Matthew 23 in mind.

Was what he was saying corrupting? Was it putrid? It was corrective, right?

He was saying a forceful saying for sure. But it's not unlike you have heard it said, but I say to you, this is what they were.

They were false teachers, ultimately adding to the law, putting burdens on people that they couldn't bear.

Brian, right? Yeah. So let's get back to Ecclesiastes.

You know, there's a time to build up and a time to tear down. So I have to deal with our wives.

There's a time to build her up. And you know what? I mean, look, I wasn't in the

Marine Corps, right? Because I wasn't insane. I'd read about the

Marines and I go, I don't think I can do that. But, you know, the first 48 hours or so I was in the army,

I was convinced that they were going to kill me. Well, we have just a second.

We need a First Sergeant Wiley story. I might have told you this before, but or I've told people in person.

But First Sergeant Wiley was the last person that you saw after they, you know, woke you up in the middle of the night, ran you around and, you know, convince you you were going to be a dead man and you're going to Iran and all these things were going to happen.

And you're just tired and you're beat down. And finally, at the end of this 48 hour period, you're standing in front of First Sergeant Wiley, who is just sitting at his desk and he's got this twitch and like, you know, he'll say something.

And then and his shoulder is just like uncontrollably twitching. And you go, what is wrong with that, dude?

Hey, how's it going? You know, and then you look over his shoulder. And he's got a picture of him holding a severed head.

And you think to yourself, this really is it, you know,

I'm done. That was a time to tear down where they really kind of separate you from everything that makes you comfortable.

Right. And then they build you up. But getting back to Ecclesiastes, I don't think that's the point of that.

I think it's a simple building up of a structure, tearing down of a structure.

Like when you drive through New England, sometimes you just think that would be a lovely place to build. And the other thing

I think is. That place needs to get torn down. Right. I mean, there are some houses where you just go,

OK, that's a that's a fixer upper. That's a terror downer. Now, you want to say,

OK, let's talk about that for a minute. Something has come up.

With your wife and you need to correct it. OK. What do you suppose?

I mean, I don't want to give an illustration, but what do you suppose the correct approach is that is to that?

You know, and let me just. Couch it by saying this. There are different ways of approaching different situations.

You know, with a child, they're going to run across the street. You just say. You know,

Tommy, I don't know if I do that. Sorry, Tommy. Billy, I don't know if I do that.

If I were you, that'd be one way to do it. Right. There goes your three year old. You know, Billy, I don't know if I do that.

If I were you, there goes Billy through the air.

OK. You don't do that because he's a child and you you have to stop him. So you just say stop or you yell at him.

OK. Now. Your wife bounces a check, do you say?

I can't believe you bounce that check. What is wrong with you? It's a way to go.

Yeah. So, you know, instead of going to level seven, eight, nine in terms of volume, sometimes you just need to get your wife alone and say, you know,

I have to address this with you. And, you know, and walk through that. If you just think, you know, if I don't want to totally transfer this into the workplace.

But if you think about the way if you've ever managed employees, the way that you talk to them, if you want to encourage them to do a good job, you say, you know what?

Here are all the things I see you doing that are great. But this thing came up and that wasn't so great.

And, you know, let them say, yeah, I knew it as soon as I did it. You know,

I knew that was wrong thing and I was going to talk to you about it or whatever. So sometimes the right thing is to ask a question or approach the topic gently and see what your wife says with regard to it.

I mean, let's put it this way. If you just say, I can't believe you did this. Or, I don't know, some other more direct approach to handling a situation, the response may not be so good.

And, you know, does it matter? Yes. I mean,

I want I want the right things to happen. But I also want to not interrupt kind of the positive aspect of our relationship by just being unnecessarily harsh.

If Paul says and he does, husbands love your wives and don't be harsh with them.

Well, what does that mean? It means don't be harsh with them. Well, sure. But we're talking about husbands loving their wives, not wives.

But go ahead. What's your question? No, I mean, you know, it's a good question.

Does it really change in terms of the approach that the wife says? I need to talk to my husband. You know, there's something that's really bothering me or I see him doing something that's really wrong or he made a, you know.

And this goes both ways, too. If you see your wife making a mistake, you see your husband making a mistake and they know it was wrong.

OK. So you can either attack them for something they know that was wrong, which is not building up, or you can just kind of let that go.

On the other hand, if they're blind to something, this is why you're there.

Right. If your wife says to you, you know, honey, did you ever think about the way that you say this thing or the other thing?

Some people might hear that and take it as. You know, an attack or an assault or whatever, and you think about it, you go, you know what?

She's right. I need to modify that. That's the wife helping the husband and it could go the other way, too.

You know, honey, do you ever think about the tone that you take with such and such and such, such a good point?

Right. So, yeah, I think that can go both ways and. And that fits into cautions for six, actually.

Well, let me just read this little note here about our our speech.

I like this because one man writes this. His name's Gabaline. He talks about instead of gun control, he says, how about tongue control?

And then he says it will never be achieved unless there is, first of all, heart and mind control.

True or false. And how do you know it's true? Because Jesus said it.

Right. He says. What comes out of our mouths just reveals what's in our hearts.

He goes on to say, when any Christian comes to the point of yielding to the

Lord in full sincerity, cost what it may control of his thought life, then the problem of managing his tongue will be solved.

Let me just read Colossians four, six, and we'll close here. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer each person.

And people go, wait a minute. I've heard that applied to evangelism. OK, I agree.

Let your speech always be gracious. You want to be nice to people seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer each person.

People say, well, that's for within the body because that's the second half of Colossians and that's how we're to have body life.

OK. And I say, how about within your house?

How about within your marriage? Shouldn't your speech always be gracious? Well, except for with your wife.

Wrong. Seasoned with salt again. Paul doesn't he doesn't miss anything.

Why? Because, A, he's spent three years with Jesus. B, he is inspired by the

Holy Spirit to be seasoned with salt. Keep something from doing what? What would it do for for food in the ancient world?

They didn't have refrigerators, so they used salt. Keep it from going bad or undergoing.

Corruption. Right. Let no corrupting word. So he says, let no corrupting word come out of your mouth instead.

Let it be gracious, seasoned with salt, preserving. Right. Hendrickson said, you know, that our language toward one another must not be like this insipid.

What does he mean? Stupid. Again, I just come back to this simple thing.

And it's and it's hard to do. And sometimes it will seem like it's impossible. If you just think to yourself for a second, is what

I'm about to say true or false or helpful or edifying or does it build up? Does it give season? You know, grace is do any of those things.

And you're going to think to yourself, I don't have time for that. But what's the reality?

You can think a lot faster or slower than you think or than you speak. OK, so when you say to yourself, oh,

I'm just taking too long to say this false.

I mean, has anybody ever said, well, probably you have. So I shouldn't answer it that way.

What's more likely that you say, I wish I'd taken more time before I said anything or.

I took too long before I spoke. How many times have you had to apologize for that?

Now, you probably have. But if you're put, you know, if I was to give each one a weight of one, we're going to do a scale, which one the words that you said in haste that you regret the most or the things that you really thought about and took a long time before you said anything that you that you regret.

It's just the nature.

That's our nature. We say things that we ought not to say because we don't really think about it, because we're not allowing the word of God to so invest our minds, the

Holy Spirit to so control our thoughts that what we say is not edifying.

It is corrupting. It's not filled with grace. It's not filled with love. And it's not designed to edify the other person.

It's designed to tear them down. OK, we have to close any final thoughts or comments.

Seeing none. Father, we need your help day after day after day.

We are surrounded by people who feel at liberty, maybe even compelled to say everything that they think.

Such a worldly attitude.

So self -centered. Help us. By the power of your

Holy Spirit, help us by the power of your word. The Bible transform us, renew us, make it shocking to us.

Not only when we hear other people say untoward things, but when we want to help us be shocked by that.

Help us to control our tongues and by doing so better love our wives.